Led Astray
by LynstHolin
Summary: Lucius Malfoy reflects on his relationships with his father and son.


This is for a series of song-inspired fics suggested by HybridChaos. This one was inspired by Sirenia's 'Led Astray'.

This fic is in the same universe as my fics 'The Seekers,' 'The White Cliffs of Dover,' 'Be My Love Monkey,' and 'Becoming Lucius'. This version of Abraxas Malfoy is from the head-canon of ThorsMaven (Yhu on deviantART, where there is a lot of Abraxas fic and art).

...

Lucius Malfoy waited with dread in the Shrieking Shack. Lord Voldemort was coming to talk to him, and, no doubt, to abuse him some more. That didn't even matter any more. Lucius no longer cared what happened to his body. It was just a shell that held his soul. His rotten, compromised soul. Only one thing held any meaning for him now.

_Draco_. _My heart_.

...

"I don't want to go back to school!" Draco raged, tears springing up in his eyes. "The-the other students, they'll want revenge on me for letting Death-Eaters into school."

"Not under Snape and the Carrows, they won't," Narcissa said grimly. "I'm getting the elves to pack up for you. No more of this nonsense, dear. You are going to school, and that's that."

Lucius knew the real reason his son didn't want to go back to school was that he didn't want to be away from his parents, but no seventeen year old boy would ever admit such a thing. Ever since his escape from Azkaban, Lucius had been constantly shadowed by Draco. There had even been some mornings when he and Narcissa had woken in the morning to find Draco curled up at the foot of their bed, something that had not happened since the boy was five or six.

"Father? Please?" Draco was trying manfully not to cry.

Lucius understood, he really did. The first thing he had done upon coming home after leaving prison was embrace his wife and his son, clutching them both as if he would never let them go. He wanted them both with him, always, everywhere. But he needed Draco out of the Manor, away from Voldemort and the psychopaths that surrounded him. Away from Bellatrix, who, in the time she had been in Azkaban, had gone from slightly loopy to homicidal maniac. The only legitimate way for Lucius to send his son away was to convince the Dark Lord that it would be beneficial to have a student spy in the school.

Lucius did his best to put on his old, commanding air, the one he had before the horrors of prison had stripped him to the bone. "Listen to your mother." Draco sniffled, but didn't argue it any further.

When it was time to leave for the train station, Lucius could not go with; he was a wanted fugitive, after all. He and Draco held out their hands, as if they were going to shake; Lucius took his son's hand in both of his, unable to think of anything to say. "Be good," he finally whispered. He watched Draco walk from the room, heartsick at how thin and vulnerable his boy looked.

_Draco, your father is a fool who has put your life and your soul in the gravest danger. But I will do whatever I can to keep you from being led astray like I was_.

...

"Lord Voldemort," Abraxas snorted. "_Ridiculous_. I went to school with the twit. His name is Tom Riddle. I suppose he finds it too ordinary. He did always want to think that he was special. It must have been quite a shock for him, coming to Hogwarts and discovering that he was far from being the only person that could do magic. Lucius, I do not care that you are nearly a man-if I find out you've been associating with Riddle or any of his mentally-deficient minions, I will thrash you."

"Yes, Father." Lucius looked out a window of the library so his father wouldn't see the mutiny on his face. _You're not right about everything_, he thought fiercely. _Almost_ a man? Lucius was twenty years old! It was just like Abraxas to not realize that. Lucius might as well be invisible, as much attention as his father paid to him.

Lucius had spent his boyhood idolizing his father, but, lately, he could barely bring himself to look at the man. All he could see now was the bad: the days and night when Lucius was left alone with just a house elf, the way Abraxas could barely bring himself to touch his son, the way Abraxas retreated just when Lucius needed him the most. All those years of desperately trying to earn Abraxas' love and approval... How could Lucius have allowed himself to be so pathetic?

"I'm off," Abraxas said, rising from his wing-chair. "Charlus and I are going out this evening."

Lucius merely grunted._ Of course_ his father was running off to be with Charlus Potter again. His mouth twisted bitterly as he remembered how, as a small, lonely child spying on his father and his 'friend,' he wondered why the tall, bespectacled man got all of Abraxas' affection. Now, Lucius understood the relationship better; he knew they had been lovers back before Charlus had married. It didn't make it rankle any less.

Lucius waited until his father Flooed out of the Manor before he did the same. The meeting was at the ramshackle Goyle manse. His friend Gracchus greeted him with a grin on his ape-like face. "Our Lord is already here," he whispered. "Tonight is the night!"

Lucius Malfoy, Gracchus Goyle, Lester Crabbe; the three of them were being initiated into the Knights of Walpurgus this night. Lucius had a fluttery feeling in his stomach. "Are you ready, Lucius?" the Dark Lord said in his silky voice. His eyes were black, his skin white. Middle age had winnowed his face down to its elegant bones. He took Lucius' left hand and pushed up the sleeve of his robe, his cool touch raising goose bumps. The former Tom Riddle had a way of focusing his attention on one as if one was the only person in the room.

"Yes, my Lord, I am ready."

"Good boy. I know you are going to do great things."

The room was nearly full of chattering people. Voldemort led Lucius to the center, where the dusty chandelier threw a dim circle of light. All the chatter stopped. Voldemort set his wand on the inside of Lucius' forearm and closed his eyes, beginning to chant. Lucius gritted his teeth as the burning began. He would not flinch. He would not make a sound. He would impress his Lord with his stoicism. He would gain his Lord's approval.

...

"I'm sorry, Mr. Malfoy. Your father won't live till the morning. Dragon pox at his age-"

"He's only seventy! How old are you? Two-hundred and five?" Lucius snarled at the wizened Healer.

"One-hundred and twelve, actually. I know that seventy isn't that old for a wizard, but his health has been going downhill for the past two years. I remember him as a child. He was very sickly due to what happened to his parents in the first World War. I think it just finally caught up with him."

This wasn't happening. Abraxas could not be dying. That could not be Lucius' father in that hospital bed, shrunken and gray, his famous mane of hair falling out in clumps. Just three years ago, he had seemed as vigorous as ever, and was enjoying his retirement by learning the Muggle sport of rock-climbing. He had dragged Lucius and Draco along on one of these outings, of course. Lucius smiled as he remembered how that went: Abraxas swiftly receding up the cliff-side while Lucius and Draco were too frightened to go any higher, and too frightened to go back down. There was no way something as mundane as dragon pox could kill a man like that.

The Healer moved on to the next bed in the ward. Abraxas' eyes fluttered open. "I'm thirsty."

Lucius tilted his father's head up so he could sip some ice water through a straw. "Are you feeling better?"

"I am not going to feel better, boy," Abraxas said, his usually acerbic tone muted a bit by the weakness of his voice. "Not until I leave this mortal coil, which will be very soon."

"Don't speak nonsense, Father!"

"Lucius, I want to-to ask you one thing." The sunken eyes were unnervingly sharp as they gazed at Lucius. "You were telling the truth when you told me that Tom Riddle hasn't come back?"

It had taken decades for Lucius to learn how to successfully lie to his father. "It's one hundred percent fiction. The Potter boy has a pathological need for attention. Because he's an orphan, I suppose. And he tells stories about me in particular because he has taken a dislike to Draco."

Abraxas closed his eyes, looking satisfied. Lucius wondered how much of it was his own skill at lying, and how much was Abraxas' desire to believe him. Because one thing Lucius knew without a doubt was that his father loved him. Even when he had fled from Lucius' emotional outbursts, unable to cope with them. Even when he had held his son to standards that were impossible for a child to meet, Abraxas had loved him. Always.

Taking his father's dry, fragile-feeling hand, Lucius said, "Father, I love you."

Even though he was drifting into unconsciousness, Lucius' declaration evoked a disgusted grunt from his father. Lucius smiled. It was Abraxas' way of saying 'I love you, too'.

The old man's eyes snapped open again. "Because if you are lying, I will come back from the dead and thrash you, just like I did when you came home with that blasted Dark Mark."

...

His father's death had marked the beginning of Lucius' downward spiral. Abraxas gone, the abortive quest for the prophecy that led to Azkaban for Lucius, Draco forced to become a Death-Eater and ordered to kill Albus Dumbledore... And then Lucius' escape from prison was not a release; it was just a transition to a different sort of hell.

_If only I had listened to you, Father, back when it could have made a difference in my life_. Lucius didn't speak to his father for a year after the beating he got for his Dark Mark. Now, if he had a Time-Turner, he would go back and thrash himself. It took six years for Lucius to realize what a profoundly terrible mistake he had made. More precisely, it had taken the birth of his son to lift the scales from his eyes. The day he arrived in the world, Draco was a perfect little six pound, seven ounce hostage. Lucius had done many terrible things, things that had stained his soul, but what he would always hate himself the most for was bringing his son into the most dire peril-moral, mental, and physical.

The soft slither of Nagini alerted Lucius to the presence of the Dark Lord. He dropped to his knees and bowed his head. His pride was completely gone. It didn't matter. Pride would not save his son. Lucius crawled to the Dark Lord and began to plead.


End file.
